Financial close has been reached on a £340m million combined heat and power energy from waste (EfW) facility in Kent.

The Wheelabrator Kemsley facility will have a capacity of 43MW and is expected to be operational in 2019.

The plant will annually generate 344GWh of sustainable electricity to the grid and 400GWh of heat to an adjacent paper mill.

In addition, it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 163,000 tonnes per year, as well as prevent up to 550,000 tonnes of waste each year from either going to landfill or being pre-treated and exported to European EfW plants.

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Mott MacDonald, who provided technical advice on the project, will now provide construction and operations monitoring services to the lenders in an ongoing role. Constructions Industrielles de la Méditerranée S.A. has been awarded the EPC contract for the project, while Wheelabrator will own, operate and maintain the facility once the commissioning phase has been completed.

Mott MacDonald's Project Director, Russell Dallas, said: "Wheelabrator Kemsley is the first large-scale EfW plant in the UK to reach financial close that is supported by the Contract for Difference mechanism, the new government support scheme for renewable energy projects.

"It is expected to help decarbonise the paper mill's production process by replacing part of its gas-fired steam supply, supporting the government's growing efforts to cut carbon emissions from the manufacturing sector. The project is also the country's first fully merchant EfW facility to be delivered using project finance."

(LM/JP)